


more than kin, less than kind

by Nomette



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Curie Character Study, Curie has no time for your inefficient bullshit, F/M, Post-Blind Betrayal, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-14
Updated: 2016-08-14
Packaged: 2018-08-08 11:09:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7755424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nomette/pseuds/Nomette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Curie was delighted when she heard that Danse was a synth: perhaps, she thought, he would be more amenable to discussing the beautiful technology of the Brotherhood of Steel with her now that he knew that they were the same. </p>
<p>Monsieur was less enthusiastic. He explained gently to her that Danse was unlikely to take the news well, for he had thought himself human for a long time, and therefore was stuck in human patterns. And humans, he explained, had trouble changing their opinions even when the data showed clearly that they were wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	more than kin, less than kind

Curie was delighted when she heard that Danse was a synth: perhaps, she thought, he would be more amenable to discussing the beautiful technology of the Brotherhood of Steel with her now that he knew that they were the same.

Monsieur was less enthusiastic. He explained gently to her that Danse was unlikely to take the news well, for he had thought himself human for a long time, and therefore was stuck in human patterns. And humans, he explained, had trouble changing their opinions even when the data showed clearly that they were wrong.

“You’re not like that, Monsieur,” Curie said, but it only made him look sad.

“I only hide it better than the others,” he said.

“Still!” insisted Curie. Danse’s reaction might be awful, but that would be something new, and therefore interesting. “I want to talk to him.” Monsieur sighed.

“If you do talk to him, make sure it’s somewhere with witnesses, and give yourself enough space to run if he decides to attack you.”

“Surely Danse would never attack me!”

“The man is traumatized, Curie. Treat him like a patient.”

Curie had nodded, but she hadn’t really understood. Real understanding was always just beyond her: in every field but science she was so ignorant that the first revelation was always just how little she knew. It hurt, but so did most things in the Commonwealth. Curie had not waited a hundred years to stop at the door because she’d stubbed her toe.

 

Curie spotted Danse on the riverbank near Sanctuary a few days later, a dog draped across his lap. She approached slowly, her hands help up to show that she didn’t mean any harm. When Danse noticed her, he gave her a look that Curie was able to classify as hatred.  

“Go away, synth.”

“No,” Curie said. “Psychological data indicates that being left alone following trauma inhibits recovery time.”

“I’m not for you to fix,” Danse snarled, his hand going to his empty hip, as though he wanted to draw a weapon on her.  As it was, she got the sense that only the dog’s weight on his lap prevented him from getting up and running.

“I am not capable of fixing you. I am only trying to help you process your feelings.”

“I don’t have feelings!” Danse said, his voice rising sharply in volume. “I am a synth. I have neither feelings, nor duty, nor purpose!”

“That is silly,” Curie blurted out, taken aback. “Does the garden not still need pruning? Do the raiders stop coming because you are a synth? Does a cure not work because a robot makes it?” Danse stared at her, then lifted the dog gently from his lap and rose.

“You wouldn’t understand.” The words were a curse in his mouth.

“If I do not understand, because I am a synth, than you do not understand, either. So, either neither of us understands, or both of us do.” Danse swung at her, but the movement was clumsy and Curie easily dodged it. Danse’s chest was heaving as though he’d run a marathon, his face flushed. There were tears glittering in his eyes.

Curie left him by the river, though she felt the scorching weight of his eyes on her back all the way up the path.

 

When next she saw him, he was in the same place, two dogs crouched at his feet. Curie crossed the bridge multiple times a day, ferrying things back and forth from the Red Rocket to Sanctuary.

She jumped from the bridge into the water on impulse, enjoying the shock of the water on her skin. A few seconds of breathlessness she emerged from the water and waded to shore, her soaked skirt dripping water. This was not efficient, but it was a delight. The way the fabric stretched against her thighs, the water evaporating on her shoulders in the heavy sun.

“Your programming is malfunctioning,” Danse told her.

“I jumped because I love the water,” Curie said, too pleased with the water drops on her arm to take umbrage at his tone. “My decisions are better than yours. I do work, while you sulk by the river.” It was a fact. Humans were not always good at processing facts, but Curie had foolishly expected better out of Danse. According to Monsieur, he had been a devoted soldier for the Brotherhood before they kicked him out.  

“Why are you tormenting me, synth?”

“I am only talking to you,” Curie said.

“Stop,” Danse told her. Curie shook her head at this folly and skipped back up the path, her toes squishing in the mud.

The next morning Danse was gone, having slipped out with one of the supply caravans running to the smaller settlements.

The first time Danse spoke to Curie, she was two inches deep in his thigh with a pair of tongs and fishing for bullet fragments.

“What’s taking so long?” he asked, breathing heavily through his nose.

“This is messy,” she exclaimed. The visibility in Danse’s thigh was very bad because of all the blood, and his thigh muscles kept flexing and making it difficult for her to fish out the last bullet fragment. It was too bad the institute hadn’t thought to make their synths less messy on the inside than humans. “There! We are done. Hold still- I don’t know why you won’t take some Med-X for the pain.” Curie injected the stimpack with her left hand and pinched the bullet hole shut with the right and began to countdown from ten in her head. Around four she noticed that Danse was soundlessly mouthing the numbers as well, the two of them counting in perfect sync.

“Two, one,” she said, and let go of his leg. The cut had closed. With the bullet fragments out, the leg would be like new in a few hours time. There was a stash of snack cakes and purified water for people who had bled a lot in a cabinet over the medical station; she handed Danse the water and cake, then took one for herself. Danse was the last patient because he’d insisted that she see to all the settlers first. She toweled her hands off in the sink Monsieur had so sweetly installed for her and opened the cake.

“Could you pass me the towel?” Danse asked. She handed it to him and he wiped off his hands, then opened the bottle and chugged. Good. Danse was not an efficient person, but he was one of Curie’s patients, and so she wanted him to do well.

The snack cakes were calling to her. She took a bite, savoring the initial sweetness, the satisfying crunch of the crispy wafers cracking under her teeth and the overwhelming flavor of the smooth vanilla filling. She finished her first bite and took a second. It was amazing, how the body worked. Amazing, to want, and then to have what you wanted, to have it over and over.

“I love snack cakes,” she declared with a little sigh once the package was gone. Danse frowned at her and finished his food, then stood. She hadn’t seen in him a few weeks: he’d started shaving again, and his color was better than it had been at sanctuary.

“You look well,” she told him, not expecting an answer, and scooped the empty snack cake packaging into a trash can. The empty water bottles went into recycling, where the settlers would pick them up later for refilling at the Castle’s water purifiers.

“Why do you care?” Danse asked, his voice quiet.

“Because I am a doctor,” Curie told him.

“You are a synth,” Danse said, as though it meant anything at all.

“I am a synth, but I am not a monster, or a slave. I am a doctor, and I see that you are hurt, so I will fix what I can.”

“You can’t fix me.” Danse’s interactions with her were always infused with a kind of blind hatred which shone through all his words. It was not strange to hear anger in his voice- it had been strange when it was absent.

“I fixed your leg,” Curie said, because it was true. As to the rest- well, it was true. She could not fix the rest. Sometimes Curie remembered how large the Commonwealth was, how disordered and disease-ridden and radiated, and it always made her feel small and helpless. It was strange, because it was the opposite of being stuck in the vault, but it felt exactly the same. The word for this feeling was despair, and Curie had been familiar with it for longer than Danse had been alive. “You will have to fix the rest yourself.” Danse was silent for a moment.

“I was made to be a soldier of the Brotherhood of Steel,” Danse says, very quietly. “I cannot do that any longer.” Curie did not see why not, but Danse seemed set on this point.

“What does a brotherhood of steel paladin do?” she asked.

“A brotherhood of steel paladin heads field operations,” Danse said, straightening.  

“And what are these?”

“Operation include retrieving technology, clearing areas of super mutants, ghouls, synths, or other undesirables, or holding a point against further incursions.”

“Synths are not undesirables for Monsieur, and he is your commanding officer,” Curie pointed out.

“I am not a soldier anymore,” Danse said, his voice choked.

“No, but you are still Danse. If you are done with the task you were given, you will have to find another one.”

“Why do you care?”

“I was a lab robot before the war,” Curie told him. “I was told to make a cure. And I did. And then I was finished. There was no reason for me any longer. But I did not die. I lingered for years in the old room, with the corpses of the people who made me and I asked myself daily: why was I cursed with this awareness?” Her accent had grown thick with emotion, so she forced herself to pause and muster her voice. When she did speak, she wanted to be absolutely clear. “If you have not been left with instructions, you must make yourself. This is your duty as a thinking being.”

“I am not like you,” Danse said, but it was a weak protest.

“You are not like me,” she agreed. “I was so alone. You are not alone.” Danse rose on trembling legs and for a moment she thought he would speak to her. Then he ran.

 

Danse left the next morning, and Curie did not see him for months, though the injured soldiers spoke of him after the Battle of the Institute and the Battle of the Old North Church. Curie did not care about the politics, only the aftermath. The Institute had been destroyed: this was good, because it meant that no one would ever catch Curie and lock her away, and bad, because there had been so many wonderful things in the Institute. It was a shame that the scientists had not used them properly, but not a surprise. How could they have redefined humanity with such limited data as was provided by life in a sterile hole? They had tried to change the species without  understanding what it was.

Life went on. Curie planted crops alongside dusty ghouls, fixed sprains, learned to play Caravan and brew moonshine, stitched up wounds and buried the dead. The Commonwealth was overwhelming and exhausting, and Curie loved every minute of it. One evening she returned from the field to find all of Sanctuary clustered around a radio, listening to Danse make a speech on the Brotherhood of Steel channel.

“I want to make one thing clear to everyone. This body might be synth, but my heart and mind belong to the Brotherhood. The Institute is still a tremendous threat to the Commonwealth. They possess technologies that need to be confiscated or destroyed. And even if that means I have to pull the trigger on my own kind, I’m willing to make that sacrifice.” Piper grabbed Curie’s wrist and tugged her in to listen to the radio.

“Blue killed Elder Maxson,” she said quietly. She said it like it was important, but Curie didn’t understand why. She’d never met any of the Brotherhood Elders: Monsieur had insisted on keeping her off the Prydwen for some reason. “It means that synths like you won’t be in trouble,” Piper added. Piper was very kind, and she often explained things to Curie before Curie needed to ask. “Blue saved Danse and took out the Institute, so the Brotherhood will listen to him. Cait will be pleased.”

“Does this mean I can visit the Prydwen?” Curie asked.

“I wouldn't go that far.”

 

An note to the Prydwen came, written in a careful, even hand, and signed by Elder Danse. She was cordially invited to lecture to a group of scientists on the topic of the cure she’d developed during her years in Vault 81. When she told Monsieur, he examined the invitation, frowned, looked at Curie, read the invitation again, and then asked Curie to allow him to accompany her when she went.

The Prydwen was very large. Curie was taken to a small room filled with people in lab coats. Scientists, perhaps? To her surprise, Danse introduced her to the group.

“This is Curie. She is a synth. However, she has never at any point been associated with the institute, nor did she steal anyone’s identity. She was formerly a modified Miss Nanny which became sentient after years of research in the vault. Please give her the same respect you would give any other fellow scientist. I believe she will be a good asset to the Brotherhood in the field of science. Ad Victoriam.”

“Ad Victoriam,” the scientists echoed. Curie went timidly to the front and took the mike, then forced herself to straighten.

“I am Curie. I was created to help solve the problem of disease. I have brought a presentation on the cure which I have developed. I will show it now.” When Curie had been trapped in the vault, waiting patiently for her battery to die or for the world to end, she’d made a presentation in her head for her doctor. Over and over, she’d explained, until it was perfectly clear: what she’d made, how she’d made it, what the implications were. These men were not her doctor. But they listened, and at the end of the presentation a few of them clapped. When Danse glanced over at them and began to clap they all joined in.

Curie’s face was hot and her breathing was hitching. A strange ache was in her chest. She only realized that there were tears in her eyes when a blink caused them to overflow down her cheek.

“Thank you,” she said into the mike. “You have a noble goal here at the Brotherhood, which is no less than mine: to defeat disease. Let us reach victory together.”

Danse caught her after the question and answer section and apologized.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“I am not crying because I am sad. I am crying because I am happy. I was made by a scientist- he stayed with me from the day I was born to the day he died. I wish I could have told him… I wish I could have told him that I finished the task he gave me.” Tears were dripping into Curie’s collar, but she felt happy. It made no sense. “But it is enough. It is enough to tell these scientists what I have discovered. At last, I have done what I was made for.”

“And now?”

“There are other diseases. I will never stop until I have defeated them all.”

“A worthy goal.”

“They say we are immortal. So I will do it. I have enough time.”

“Ad victoriam,” Danse said.

**Author's Note:**

> [ more kin than kind.](http://nfs.sparknotes.com/hamlet/page_22.html) and [ danse becoming elder.](http://tentacle-explosion.tumblr.com/post/134440441756/huge-fallout-4-spoilers-in-the-audio-and-the-text)   
>     
> For all your robot needs, I'm [Nomette](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/nomette) on tumblr.


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